Many objects have intrinsic value of their own or have value because they enable access to other valuable objects. For instance, jewelry and coins have intrinsic value due to the value of their precious stones or metals, automobiles have intrinsic value due to their ability to provide transportation, and files of business information have intrinsic value due to the content of the information contained within the files. Due to their intrinsic value and the potential for theft or misuse, jewelry, coins, and files are often kept in lockable storage cases or cabinets, while automobiles have their own door, trunk, and ignition locks. Because keys to the locks enable access to such objects, the keys, themselves, have value as well. Other objects may be inherently dangerous or create legal liability because unauthorized use of such an object can create a safety hazard for others. For instance, explosives and many medicines are inherently dangerous if used or dispensed improperly by untrained individuals. Also, unauthorized use or copying of keys to apartments or hotel rooms can enable theft of personal valuables and can create personal safety hazards to tenants and guests.
Regardless of the source of an object's value, its dangerous nature, or its potential for creating legal liability, business owners, landlords, and hotel proprietors have sought, over the years, to restrict access to the above-described objects, and others, by limiting their access to only those individuals who require access to the objects in order to perform their job functions. Typically, access has been restricted by first placing the objects in a lockable container for which a limited number of keys exist. Then, control over the removal and re-insertion of an object stored in the container has been maintained by employing manual procedural methods such as issuing keys for the container to only select individuals (i.e., usually managers or supervisors), requiring an employee or maintenance worker to request that a manager or supervisor provide access to the container for removal and/or re-insertion of objects from/to the container, and requiring the employee or worker to sign for any object removed and/or re-inserted from/to the container. For example, many automobile dealers place the keys to vehicles on their lot inside a locked box. When a potential customer desires to take a vehicle on a test drive, the customer's salesperson requests that a manager open the box so that the salesperson can remove the keys to the vehicle from the locked box. Similarly, many apartment landlords store the keys to tenants' units in a locked container and require maintenance workers to request use of a key when it is necessary for them to enter a tenant's unit to perform various maintenance tasks. Likewise, many hospitals provide only nursing supervisors with a key to a medicine cabinet and require other nurses to request that the supervisor open the cabinet to enable the removal of medicine for a patient.
Unfortunately, such manual apparatus and methods have met with limited success since they typically rely heavily on the thoroughness of humans to consistently follow designated procedures. Also, such systems are often fraught with the potential for misuse and abuse due to the dishonesty of some individuals and the inability of the systems themselves to detect possible misuse and abuse. For instance, once a salesperson or maintenance worker gains access to a key, the salesperson or worker may keep the key out of the locked container until the next day unless a manager or landlord reviews a log at the end of the day to determine which, if any, keys have not been returned to the locked container. By keeping the key overnight, a salesperson or cohort may steal a car (or items from a car) or a worker may return to an apartment complex during the night to burglarize a unit and, potentially, cause physical harm to a tenant. Additionally, by keeping a key out of the locked container for a longer period of time than necessary without the knowledge of a manager or landlord, the key may be copied or become lost by the salesperson or maintenance worker. The limited success and inherent problems of manual systems suggest the need for a system which automatically controls access to and tracks the use of various types of objects.
At least one automatic system has been developed and used in the past. The system employed a lockable container for storing objects which were each attached to a unique assembly identified by a conventional bar-code symbol printed on a tongue of the assembly. The container incorporated an enclosure and a drawer which, after unlocking, could be slidably removed or inserted into the enclosure, thereby creating relative movement between the drawer and a bar-code scanner mounted to the enclosure. When stored in the container, the tongue of each assembly extended downward through an aperture in a top panel of the drawer to enable reading of the bar-code for each assembly by the bar-code scanner whenever the drawer was moved relative to the enclosure. Because the bar-code scanner required relative movement between the drawer and the enclosure to function, the bar-codes associated with each object could only be read if the drawer was opened or closed. Therefore, the system had no way of detecting the presence or absence of an object unless the drawer was opened or closed, for example, by a manager or landlord. Thus, the system could not accurately track the amount of time that an object was not present in the container, nor could it determine who actually had possession of the object. Also, because the assemblies were not restrained and were therefore, prone to variable, random movement relative to the drawer and enclosure, misreads by the bar-code scanner were a continual problem requiring repeated openings and closings of the drawer to effect accurate reading of all of the bar-codes on the present assemblies. Other problems, including dust and dirt present on the bar-codes, also caused misreads by the bar-code scanner. Additionally, because the bar-codes were visible on the assemblies, they could be easily copied by an individual for the creation of substitute objects designed to "fool" the system, thereby compromising the security supposedly provided by the system.
There is a need, therefore, in the industry for a system which controls access to and tracks the use of objects of various types which address these and other related, and unrelated, problems.